Chapter 5
"That's a serious accusation."
"It gets worse."
She pointed toward the report.
"Helixor had created an experimental fertility program for couples with certain inherited conditions.
Genevieve had trouble getting pregnant.
You knew that."
I said nothing.
We had spent four years trying.
Two miscarriages.
One failed round of fertility treatment.
Months in which Genevieve stopped walking through the nursery wing of our house because it hurt too much to look at empty rooms.
"The clinic offered her a new procedure," Elena said.
"She thought it was legitimate.
She thought they were screening embryos to prevent disease."
My stomach tightened.
"But they were doing something else."
"What?"
"Editing markers."
"Gene editing?"
"Early stage.
Unapproved.
Hidden under fertility research."
Prescott muttered something under his breath.
I stared at Elena.
"You're telling me my children were experimental subjects?"
"I'm telling you someone changed their cells before Genevieve ever carried them."
For several seconds I couldn't hear anything except the clock on the wall.
"Why would they do that?"
"Because they were trying to create children resistant to certain blood cancers."
The cruelty of it nearly made me laugh.
"My children are dying of leukemia."
"I know."
"Then they failed."
"No."
Elena shook her head.
"They created something they didn't understand."
She explained what Genevieve had uncovered.
The altered receptor could remain dormant for years.
Most conventional treatment targeted pathways the modified cells simply bypassed.
Genevieve had discovered evidence of the program accidentally after finding documents attached to one of her old fertility files.
She began investigating Helixor quietly.
She traced research payments.
Patient records.
Laboratory samples.
When she realized Jonah and Blythe carried the altered marker, she panicked.
"So why didn't she tell me?"
Elena looked at me with an expression I hated because it contained pity.
"She tried."
"No."
"She didn't trust the people around you."
"My wife trusted me."
"You."
Elena nodded.
"She didn't trust everyone around you."
The words landed differently.
I glanced toward Prescott.
His face remained unreadable.
"Who?"
"She never told me his name."
"His?"
"She said someone close to you controlled too much of what reached your desk."
I felt a coldness spreading through my chest.
Elena continued.
"Genevieve had been helping Sofia access treatment.
That's how we became close.
She gave me the necklace and copies of the files because she needed someone outside your world.
Someone nobody would consider important."
"Why didn't you come sooner?"